Why, after a Live Trace, when you Output to Swatches, do you always end up with a bunch of Unused Swatches? What are their purpose, assuming they have one? I see a lot articles explaining how to delete them, but nothing on why they're there to begin with.

Are you certain they are unused? Or that they aren't part of the file before the trace?
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ScottMay 13 '13 at 20:22

Well, they don't do anything to the image if I edit them, and if I use the Select Unused Swatches command, they are selected. This is from a Live Trace, so they couldn't belong to the original file, (since it's not an Illustrator file, right?). They often seem to be identical in color to the "real" swatches.
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sudon'tMay 13 '13 at 20:25

I can't replicate the issue with Illustrator v15.1.1. Note: Live Trace was replaced entirely with Image Trace in CS6 - same function completely rewritten.
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ScottMay 13 '13 at 20:31

1 Answer
1

live trace adds the swatches sampled from the original image you are tracing. for example if you have set it to 6 colour trace, it will add six colours to your swatch palette.
it doesn't matter if they are used or unused, you can delete them from your swatch palette and it will not affect the trace.

That's just the thing - it adds way more than six. Or whatever the number of colors are. And they appear to be doubles, or even triples of the "used" swatches. I learned pretty quickly that it's no problem to select and delete them. After all, there is a command just for that. Clearly Adobe saw a need for the command, so I wonder why these swatches are generated in the first place?
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sudon'tMay 14 '13 at 1:52

there's a ton of things i wonder about in illustrator :)
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stephencoshMay 14 '13 at 8:45

Yeah, me too, but I'm really just learning it. So, just now I did a six-color trace, and ended up with thirteen swatches. I wonder if maybe it happens because I changed the Tracing Options a couple of times before hitting Trace? That's the only thing I can think of if this isn't "normal" behavior.
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sudon'tMay 14 '13 at 21:30

Ok, what happens is everytime you adjust Live Trace options, and Preview your changes, if you have Output to Swatches selected, it'll add swatches. If Output to Swatches is left unchecked until you're ready to Trace, you'll end up with the normal amount of swatches.
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sudon'tJun 1 '13 at 19:44